Factors affecting speed of connection?

Total Oblivion Omnis · EVDO Newbie Joined: 03 Nov 2007 Posts: 3

Hello, I recently returned my Alltel Franklin 550 and got all but 25 dollars back before the trial period expired. I was on Rev 0 and getting download speeds anywhere from 200 - 500 kbps. One time I actually got over 700kbps. Though, I've read about members who consistently get 1mbps down, maybe more. Why is this, I consistently had 100 percent signal strength!

I suppose I should tell about where I live. I am technically a resident of Hattiesburg, MS. I live out in the sticks, and I am sick and tired of hughesnet (although, their service has been quite good, easily beating the speeds of the Franklin, but the FAP and exorbitant pings aren't worth the money). I do not have LOS of the tower, but the closet tower I know of is a mile away, but it might not be alltel's. Alltel has EVDO coverage along most of highway 49 and most of Hattiesburg, and I'm no more than two miles from the highway. I live in a forested area, so there is plenty of thick vegetation. I live in a trailer with tin walls (but not a tin roof). The modem sat on top of my aluminum computer. The window is about 5 feet from the modem, which definitely doesn't line up to any towers. Without the Y cable, I'd usually get 80 - 100 percent signal strength. With the Y cable, I'd rarely go below 100 percent. I'd literally have to cup my hand over the modem to go down any, and I think the lowest I went with that was 60 percent. The dB readings were -76 to -80, IIRC. Download speeds varied throughout the day usually varied between 300 and 600 kbps. Time of day didn't seem to make a difference, even late at night. I tried the evdo super charge trick and set my TCP receive window size to 65536 and 2##### (I think). No difference. The highest speed I ever attained was an instantaneous spike of roughly 1mbps.

So, that's my story. What factors really do affect connection speed, and how significantly? Tower capacity, obstructions (regardless of signal strength)? I'm really curious of how signal strength affects your speed. Even though strength is at 100 percent around -80dB, how much better could I get if I was camping under the tower with -50 dB (not that I would seriously try that, lol)? To say the least, I'd buy a nice outdoor directional booster and an amp if I could get noticeably better speeds and / or pings.

One final thing. I plan to go with sprint because a local dealer said that they were upgrading to Rev A. in Q2 of 2008 (and hopefully Rev B soon because I hear that it's not a difficult thing to do, and is cost effective). I've heard that sprint released firmware that gave you a speed cap so you could get only what they promised. Is this true, if so, what can I do? I'd sure hate to be capped at 7-800 kbps when I might possibly be able to get triple that amount.

Edit: Oops, I almost forgot this rather important inquiry. Some articles state that Rev B is capable of 75.3 mbps throughput with a bunch of channels and others say it'll be 14 mbps. I think it's more likely to be the 14 mbps that'll make it to my card. But, sprint is working on WiMax, something that is capable of 70 mbps with a 35 mile range! That makes me think if sprint pulls off WiMax then it's entirely possible to get "up to" 75.3 mbps to Rev B modems instead of "up to" 14 mbps. What do you guys think? Is this wishful thinking?

jackrodgers · EVDO Addict Joined: 23 Mar 2006 Posts: 1046

According to what I've read hereon, thick vegetation seems a problem.

Hills another.

Proximity to tower is very important as after a certain distance the signal is not useable. 3G might have a solution for that.

Total Oblivion Omnis · EVDO Newbie Joined: 03 Nov 2007 Posts: 3

The vegetation isn't too horrible. Katrina knocked down a good many trees. If a line were to be drawn between the tower and my house, there would be a forest, quite possibly a pasture, a few roads, a good-sized stream, and likely a river. Though, the trees aren't close to my house at all in that direction. Hopefully I'm not SOL. The signal probably has to pass through the tops of some trees. But definitely no LOS. Hopefully Rev A / B or maybe WiMax if it ever comes will be better. That makes me curios though. If a cellphone were to carry 70mbps WiMax, it would need about 47 T1 lines to support those speeds for even one user O_O.

Dellman · EVDO User Joined: 24 Dec 2007 Posts: 31 Location: NW Ohio

Yeah that would be my guess , but there could also be others. I used to live in a heavily wooded area well within Rev A coverage but never got more than 2-3 bars and no less than -95-100 dbm's. Having since moved out to more open area with few trees at all surrounding the house I now get 4-6 bars and dbm's of between 83-90, not really great but better than what i was getting.